It's beginning to become clear that acquiring the rights to these old games is the long pole in the tent. The original properties have been sold and passed all over the place over the years. It's probably harder to figure out who has the rights than it is to acquire them. Once you get lawyers involved it's a never ending process that's probably not worth the effort.

At least some Namco properties should join future volumes. Their rep at AA has hinted at a deal being signed there, so classics like 2600 Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Pole Position might be escaping the vaults at long last.

BanjoPickles wrote:I've said it before, and I'll keep saying that these compilations are the definition of missed opportunity. With the insane amount of space available on a PS4/XB0 disk, why would they not go all out and offer a comprehensive history of Atari? Why not include lost gems from the Atari ST, 7800, Lynx, and even Jaguar? Who wouldn't want to play Tempest 2000 without having to hunt down the old console? I'd kill to play Food Fight without having to download the emulator and rom (I no longer have the space for a physical collection). It would have been cool to have a 3-disc set that looked like this:

Disc 1: Roots

This could include the early arcade games like Pong, Breakout, Battlezone, etc., along with the Atari 2600 games.

Disc 2: The Tramiel years

This could cover the Atari ST and 7800 years, along with the latter-day 2600 releases.

Disc 3: Last Hardware Years

This could cover Atari Lynx/Jaguar.

I don't know why they insist on rereleasing the exact same compilations, over and over. It's the same problem that plagues Sega! They ignore decades of history, instead only focusing on one era. It's frustrating to see companies pretend that 75% of their creative output never happened.

I love this post totally. It is the best. It is what I think also. Sega, what no Star Jacker is the west...?

Emulation and licenses aren't cheap, so I'm afraid that holds a lot of these dreams back. But AtGames is committed to delving deeper into Atari's legacy at least, so some of this should be coming to fruition from 2017 onward.

For an example of the issues, here's where the Lynx library stands today per AtGames (That post comes from their representative/adviser that posts at AtariAge).

So there's a grand total of two games that are available for AtGames to use that Atari's corporate legacy today owns, but which also doesn't utilize an outside license of sorts. Obviously between the small pool of readily available software, the complexity to emulate the platform, the cost of outside licensing, and its failure in the marketplace, we can safely count on never seeing Lynx games in a future Atari compilation.

Heck, even look at the 7800 library. I don't know the legal status of this software, but when you scrap the license based software like Ms. Pac-Man and the light gun shooters that lack a joystick mode from Atari's in-house lineup, you're left with approximately this list of likely candidates.

Pretty slim pickings, not to mention that the three best games have all been emulated in arcade form in the past 10 years (While sadly absent on these latest collections, Food Fight reappeared on the 360's short lived Game Room service) and two of them also have 2600 ports that have regularly seen the light of day. And we don't know the legal status of these titles either, which could be problematic such as with the GCC developed arcade ports.

So I'd say that we can't even count on 7800 emulation ever happening commercially (Or Jaguar and ST emulation).

Atariboy wrote:Emulation and licenses aren't cheap, so I'm afraid that holds a lot of these dreams back.

Contrast this to the ZX Spectrum Vega+ with an emulator built from scratch, and 1000 games preloaded, and an SD card slot. If it can be done with the ZX Spectrum, why not with the Atari units?

Scotland. Most of them were original works of software perfection. So you do not have the same problems.

Thanks. That does put a different spin on it. Bummer.

I would love to see old games see sunshine and find new fans, but I also understand some people may not want old products released again (star wars holiday special syndrome). Maybe a better balance would be to have rights owners have to periodically (every decade or so) re-assert their rights or they lapse into public domain, but maybe that is not fair either.